Community policing, department cooperation drive low offense rates

The City of Colleyville's population grew by 79 percent in the past two decades. Despite this tremendous growth, though, the city celebrated its lowest crime rate in 20 years in 2011.

"Typically, we are the safest community here in Tarrant County," Colleyville Police Chief Michael Holder said. "When you combine modern policing methods and strategies with strong community support and involvement, those things lead to crime reduction."

Holder attributes the low crime rate to patrol and community policing, the neighborhood crime watch and Citizens On Patrol, which is a group of volunteer residents who act as extra sets of eyes and ears for the city's police department.

Colleyville also works with the police departments serving Southlake and Keller to reduce crime in the region.

Colleyville's data shows total reported crimes against people and property hovered between a low of 256 and a high of 365 between 1991 and 2010.

Although the population in Colleyville has nearly doubled in the past 20 years — from 12,724 people in 1990 to 22,807 people in 2010 according to the U.S. Census Bureau — only 201 offenses were reported last year.

Crimes reported

Texas police departments submit annual reported crime offense statistics to the state and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting system. The crime offenses submitted by law enforcement agencies are of reported cases, and those known as Part 1 crimes (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson).

Overall, Colleyville's UCR shows the number of those offenses fell by 34 percent last year compared with the previous year.

Colleyville has reported no murders or rapes in the past two years. Crime data shows the city's last murder occurred in 1991, and its last rape occurred in 2009.

The number of reported robberies and aggravated assaults in the city increased slightly last year.

Holder said the city has a low rate of crimes against people, so the police department focuses its resources on preventing property crimes (burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft).

"Property crimes make up, historically, 93 to 99 percent of all the crime in Colleyville," Holder said. "That's basically all the crime we have. We basically have no violent crime in Colleyville — an extremely safe city."

Colleyville saw a 36 percent decrease in total property crimes last year; the city reported a total of 192 property crimes last year and 300 property crimes in 2010.

Preventing crime

Colleyville promotes an automobile burglary and theft prevention program called "Hide, Lock, Take." Unlocked car doors and garages and leaving purses, laptops, and cash in plain sight are an open invitation for criminals, Holder said.

"Whenever you go somewhere, lock your car, take your keys and hide your property it's simple things, but people forget," he said.

The majority of criminal offenses in Colleyville are committed by nonresidents, Holder said. Colleyville has major thoroughfares, including Hwy. 26 (Colleyville Boulevard), Hwy. 121 and FM 3029 (Precinct Line Road) that offer criminals easy access to the city's homes and businesses.

"Property criminals are serial criminals and they travel distances," Holder said. "And so we've got major thoroughfares with Hwy. 121, Hwy. 26, that bring people in from other areas. "

Fighting crime

Colleyville, Southlake and Keller all share a contiguous border. They also share a regional communications center and jail based in Keller, where 911 calls from Colleyville, Southlake, Keller and Westlake, which is serviced by the Keller Police Department, are dispatched.

Southlake and Keller combined communications and jail operations in April 2007, and Colleyville joined them in October 2010.

"We put them all on the same [radio frequency] so our officers would know what was going on in Colleyville and our officers would know what was going on in Keller," said Rusty Daniels, Southlake's deputy police chief. "We've helped Colleyville. Auto burglaries that took place in Colleyville — our officers heard about it, and they were able to get up on the border between Colleyville and Southlake."

Like Colleyville, Southlake focuses its efforts on reducing property crimes in the city. There were 401 thefts last year, a 3 percent increase over the year before.

Overall, Southlake's Part 1 offenses declined by 15 percent last year.

Southlake's police chief since November 2011, Stephen Mylett previously worked as Corpus Christi Police Department's assistant police chief.

Corpus Christi's population is about 11 times more than Southlake's.

"I'm coming from Corpus Christi where the UCR numbers are high and so when I'm seeing four auto thefts for 2011 — that's just incredible to me," he said. "That's fantastic, but they are four too many — I want to see that number be zero."

Community involvement, policing and working with other cities helps to improve safety.

"Any time we can work together with our neighboring cities, it is a good thing," Holder said. "It gives us greater access to sharing intelligence information, so that can certainly affect crime."